Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself
by CrookedNeighbor
Summary: Carlos deals with his fears by using SCIENCE but that doesn't work so well in Night Vale.


I do not own Welcome to Night Vale.

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Though Cecil has, more than once, referred to him as "Carlos, brave Carlos," Carlos does not think himself very brave. Reckless maybe, and often single-minded to the point of endangering himself, but definitely not brave. In fact, Carlos has always thought he had more fears than the average person, even before he ended up in Night Vale.

For most of Carlos's life, fear was his primary motivator. When he was young and irrationally afraid of the dark (as opposed to his post-Night Vale, perfectly rational fear) his mother, rather than reassure him with platitudes or fairy tales encouraged him to try and understand the dark. And so little Carlos, armed with measuring tape, pencil, and notebook, eagerly set about organizing and examining every inch of his room.

After a week of measuring and memorizing, Carlos knew the layout of his bedroom so well that he could identify every shadowy shape, every toothy sneer, and every monstrous claw that appeared to him in the night. It wasn't a perfect solution, it didn't take all the fear away, but it soothed away the feverish uncertainty at its core.

That was the start of a Carlos's lifelong affair with science. Science let Carlos quantify, dissect, and reduce his fear down to its most basic elements. And, with very few exceptions, (he never could work out a successful scientific approach to social interaction, though his attempts convinced his colleagues to stop inviting him to dinner parties) Carlos was confident that anything he feared could be conquered through the power of science.

That is, until a colleague came back from a week of research in the desert. (Something about air quality? Or stars, maybe? A sociological study? Carlos paid very little attention to the work of others, he was much too invested in his own.) She returned pale and shaking, and talked about an impossible town that defied all logic and reasoning. The others tutted and suggested she lie down, the less compassionate making snide comments and jokes.

Carlos, though, thought about the town. A lot. Too much, until he was shocked from his thoughts by cold water, a lab assistant having shoved him into the chemical shower after the arm of his lab coat caught on fire. (Carlos made a mental note not to use Bunsen burners when his concentration was less than 100%.)

He lay in bed that night, restless, thinking of a place where terrifying things happened and science could not explain them. Carlos felt something twist in his stomach, reminding him of writhing tentacles; a new fear settling down, squirming into the cracks in his psyche. Fear of fear itself, fear that he could no longer combat the shapes in the dark with logic and measuring tape.

There was only one thing to do.

Carlos's initial impression of Night Vale is that it seems like any small town. Some of the citizens seem almost Stepford in their contentedness, but other than that, the people appear normal. This impression is shattered very, very quickly, by hooded figures and unexplained lights and an increasingly long list of things he is not supposed to know, think, or talk about.

For a while, Carlos is terrified by Night Vale. Not only because many aspects of the town are scary (and they are, more horrifying than anything a movie could conjure up, because they are undeniably real) but because he can't understand them. His list of Night Vale-related fears is quite long (it's actually more of a spreadsheet, sorted by intensity) and not least among them is his fear of the smooth-voiced radio host who professes love for him on a daily basis, and what he may or may not have done to Telly the barber. For a while, Carlos is terrified by this place where nothing makes sense and the clocks aren't even real, but he can't leave because the fear would never go away, the fear of _not understanding_ would eat away at him for the rest of his life.

He worries that Night Vale will drive him mad, that it was always going to drive him mad, that maybe it drove him mad that day he burnt his arm and everything after that was the result of his delusions.

Carlos worries and fears his way through a year in Night Vale, and along the way things get easier. Maybe he just became hardened against the strangeness of it all, like one becomes accustomed to the odd habits of friends or coworkers. Carlos thinks that it was small victories that did it. Gravity seemed to work normally. Night Vale's citizens were mostly human (aside from the angels and hooded figures, and various mutations and weird transformations.) Despite being the home of John Peters (you know, the farmer) Night Vale was still a desert and as such did not have very fertile soil.

More small victories: There was not a massive underground city far below the town. It was actually a very small underground city. Carlos even found himself somewhat relieved to find that Night Vale had left him mostly normal – when struck with small projectiles, he bled.

Also reassuring was the smooth-voiced radio host, who was nowhere near as smooth around Carlos. Thinking of his own sweaty palms, Carlos had little trouble deducing the cause of Cecil's sudden lack of eloquence.

The overly-effusive radio broadcasts are not nearly as worrying after a year. In fact, Carlos found them rather charming.


End file.
